Kubuntu ( ) is an official flavor of the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

that uses the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment instead of the GNOME desktop environment. As part of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu uses the same underlying systems. Kubuntu shares the same repositories as Ubuntu and is released regularly on the same schedule as Ubuntu. Kubuntu was sponsored by Canonical Ltd. until 2012, and then directly by Blue Systems. Now, employees of Blue Systems contribute upstream to

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

and

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

, and Kubuntu development is led by community contributors. During the changeover, Kubuntu retained the use of Ubuntu project servers and existing developers.

Name

"Kubuntu" is a registered trademark held by Canonical. It is derived from the name ''Ubuntu'', prefixing a ''K'' to represent the KDE platform that Kubuntu is built upon (following a widespread naming convention of prefixing ''K'' to the name of any software released for use on KDE platforms), as well as the KDE community. is a Bantu term translating roughly to 'humanity'. Since Bantu grammar involves prefixes to form noun classes, and the prefix has the meaning 'toward' in Bemba, is therefore also a meaningful Bemba word or phrase translating to 'toward humanity'. Reportedly, the same word, by coincidence, also takes the meaning of 'free' (in the sense of ' without payment') in

Kirundi Kirundi (), also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language and the national language of Burundi. It is mutually intelligible with Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda, and the two form parts of the Rwanda-Rundi dialect continuum spoken in Buru ...

Comparison with Ubuntu

Kubuntu typically differs from Ubuntu in graphical applications and tools:

History

Development started back in December 2004 at the Ubuntu Mataró Conference in

Mataró Mataró () is the capital and largest town of the Maresme county in Catalonia, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, Maresme coast, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, north-east of Barcel ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

when a Canonical employee Andreas Mueller, from Gnoppix, had the idea to make an Ubuntu KDE variant and got the approval from Mark Shuttleworth to start the first Ubuntu variant, called Kubuntu. On the same evening Chris Halls from the OpenOffice.org project and Jonathan Riddell from KDE started volunteering on the newborn project. Shortly after Ubuntu was started, Mark Shuttleworth stated in an interview that he recognized the need for the KDE-based distribution in order to maintain diversity in Linux distributions, which in his belief aligns with Ubuntu project's overall purpose of increasing the adoption of free software. K Desktop Environment 3 was used as default interface until Kubuntu 8.04. That version included KDE Plasma Desktop as unsupported option which became default in the subsequent release, 8.10. On , Canonical employee Jonathan Riddell announced the end of Canonical's Kubuntu sponsorship. On , Blue Systems was announced on the Kubuntu website as the new sponsor. As a result, both developers employed by Canonical to work on Kubuntu–Jonathan Riddell and Aurélien Gâteau–transferred to Blue Systems. Since 2019, Kubuntu has partnered with MindShare Inc. to offer "Kubuntu Focus" laptops and mini-PCs optimized and supported specifically for the LTS releases.

Releases

Kubuntu follows the same naming/versioning system as Ubuntu, with each release having a code name and a version number (based on the year and month of release). Canonical provides support and security updates for Kubuntu components that are shared with Ubuntu for 18 months – five years in case of long-term support (LTS) versions – after release. Both a

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

version and an alternative (installation) version (for the

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

and AMD64 platforms) are available. Kubuntu CDs were also available through the ShipIt service (which was discontinued as of April 2011).

System requirements

The desktop version of Kubuntu currently supports the AMD 64 architectures,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

x86 support was discontinued after the 18.04 release and existing

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

users were supported until 2023. The recommended minimum system requirements for a desktop installation are as follows:

Deployments

Kubuntu rollouts include the world's largest Linux desktop deployment, that includes more than 500,000 desktops in Brazil (in 42,000 schools of 4,000 cities). The software of the 14,800 Linux workstations of

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

was switched to Kubuntu LTS 12.04 and KDE 4.11. The Taipei City Government decided to replace Windows with a Kubuntu distribution on 10,000 PCs for schools. The

French Parliament The French Parliament (, ) is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of the French Fifth Republic, consisting of the Senate (France), Senate (), and the National Assembly (France), National Assembly (). Each assembly conducts legislative sessi ...

announced in 2006 that they would switch over 1,000 workstations to Kubuntu by June 2007. A Kubuntu distribution, by La Laguna University, is used in more than 3,000 computers spread in several computer labs, laboratories and libraries, among other internal projects in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

. Since October 2007, Kubuntu is now used in all of the 1,100 state schools in the Canary Islands.

Gallery

File:Kubuntu.5.04.KDE.png, Kubuntu 5.04 File:Kubuntu.5.10.KDE.png, Kubuntu 5.10 File:Kubuntu.6.06.KDE.png, Kubuntu 6.06 LTS File:Kubuntu.6.10.KDE.png, Kubuntu 6.10 File:Kubuntu.7.04.KDE.png, Kubuntu 7.04 File:Kubuntu.7.10.KDE.png, Kubuntu 7.10 File:Kubuntu.8.04.KDE.png, Kubuntu 8.04 File:Kubuntu GNU-Linux 8.10.png, Kubuntu 8.10 File:Kubuntu-9.04-DesktopEffects.png, Kubuntu 9.04 showing some of its Desktop Effects File:Kubuntu-9.10.png, Kubuntu 9.10 File:Kubuntu-10.04 netbook.png, Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Netbook Edition File:Kubuntu 10.04 main menu.png, Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop Edition File:Kubuntu1010.png, Kubuntu 10.10 File:Kubuntu-desktop1104.png, Kubuntu 11.04 Desktop Edition File:Kubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Netbook Edition KDE 4.6.2 Northern Sami.png, Kubuntu 11.04 Netbook Edition File:Kubuntu-11.10-cat(2).png, Kubuntu 11.10 File:Kubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin alpha1 empty desktop.png, Kubuntu 12.04 LTS Desktop Edition File:Kubuntu 12 04.png, Kubuntu 12.04 LTS Netbook Edition File:Kubuntu-12.10-desktop.png, Kubuntu 12.10 Desktop Edition File:Kubuntu-netbook-12.10.png, Kubuntu 12.10 Netbook Edition File:Kubuntu 13 04.png, Kubuntu 13.04 File:Kubuntu 13.10.png, Kubuntu 13.10 File:Kubuntu 14.04.3-LTS.png, Kubuntu 14.04 LTS File:Kubuntu 14 10.jpeg, Kubuntu 14.10 File:Kubuntu 15.04 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 15.04 File:Kubuntu1510.png, Kubuntu 15.10 File:Kubuntu 16.04.png, Kubuntu 16.04 LTS (''Xenial Xerus'') File:Kubuntu 16.10 Desktop.png, Kubuntu 16.10 (''Yakkety Yak'') File:Kubuntu 17.04 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 17.04 File:Kubuntu 17.10 Eng.png, Kubuntu 17.10 File:Kubuntu 18.04 Desktop.jpg, Kubuntu 18.04 LTS File:Kubuntu 18.10.png, Kubuntu 18.10 File:Kubuntu 19.04 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 19.04 File:Kubuntu 19.10 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 19.10 File:Desktop Kubuntu 20.04.png, Kubuntu 20.04 LTS File:Kubuntu 20.10 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 20.10 File:Kubuntu 21.04 Desktop en.png, Kubuntu 21.04 File:Kubuntu 21.10 Desktop.png, Kubuntu 21.10 File:Kubuntu 22.04 eng.png, Kubuntu 22.04 File:Kubuntu 22.10 English.png, Kubuntu 22.10 File:Kubuntu 23.04 English.png, Kubuntu 23.04 File:Kubuntu 23.10 with menu - English.png, Kubuntu 23.10 File:Kubuntu 24.04 Breeze Twilight Desktop English.png, Kubuntu 24.04 File:Kubuntu 24.10 screenshot.png, Kubuntu 24.10 File:Kubuntu 25.04 Dolphin 24.12.3 Breeze - English.png, Kubuntu 25.04

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 2005 software IA-32 Linux distributions Linux distributions offering KDE desktop environment Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Ubuntu derivatives X86-64 Linux distributions Linux distributions